10.21.12

Though it’s a bye week for the Philadelphia Eagles, CBS Sports’ Gregg Doyell isn’t taking any time off when it comes to simplistic, illogical analysis of Michael Vick’s recent acquisition of a family dog. “Four years ago, if you’d told me that Michael Vick would own a dog in 2012, I’d have been sick,” writes Doyel. “But that was a different Vick, and that was a different me. People change, you know?” I guess we can look forward to a 2016 Doyel column proposing the best rehabilitation path for Jerry Sandusky might be working with young boys.

That dog is going to work its magic on Vick. That’s what I believe. By the time that dog is done with him, Michael Vick will be more devastated than ever about what he did — the life he lived, the person he was — back when he was funding a dog-fighting ring. That’s what I hope, but it’s also what I believe.

Dogs are special. You know that. A person that would knowingly raise dogs to fight, to tear each other apart just so the real animals — the ones outside the cage — can wager a few bucks? A person who would do that is a criminal, and Michael Vick was that. He went to prison for it, as you recall. He lost almost everything but his athletic ability. Very few mourned for him, because he got what he deserved.

But since then he has done everything right, and I mean everything. This isn’t a story about his football career, so don’t tell me that he hasn’t done everything right — the fumbles, the interceptions, etc. This is a story about something more precious than football. It’s a story about a human being, and a dog, and redemption. And before we learned last week that he owned a dog, Michael Vick had done everything right.

It’s going to be emotional torture for Vick, but it will be more than that. It will be healing. That dog’s going to make him a better person, and when someone as influential as Michael Vick is a better person, the effects ripple outward.

Shame then, none of the dogs Vick previously owned — you know, those he drowned, strangled or electrocuted — had an opportunity to “work their magic”.

One Response to “Gregg Doyel : Defending The 4th Best QB In The NFC East’s Right To Own A Dog”

Being in Memphis it seems like it can only be a matter of time before former extra surly sports columnist Greg Doyle intimidates this guy into either changing his name or letting someone without a missing chromosome to ghost write his “commentary”.